Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

Amongst the libertarian types, there is the feeling that government gets in the way, that government impedes on freedom, that government makes business less profitable.

I’mma gonna just say… The FAA is awesome.

Do they make companies do things that cost more? Yes.

Do they restrict the freedom of people? Yes.

Do they have more than 500 Advisory Circulars, (I don’t know how many printed pages, but I just sent an email asking to the FAA AC admin, becuz I can) directing everyone who has anything to do with manned flight. Yes.

BUT because of this, air travel is by far the safest way to travel.

Next time I’ll ask my libertarian friend which advisories are worthless.

(I asked, the FAA responded… there are more than 750 Advisory Circulars, some are 150-200 pages… they estimate it would take about 50 cases of paper to print them all.)

MyBetterHalf and I took the childrens to the Women’s March. They really didn’t want to go, but got ready in an alright fashion. We talked about why we are marching, one child said “because women are paid less then men”.

But…as marches go, (or maybe it’s just liberal marches that are disorganized, run late, no real plan, no one in the back can hear the speakers, not enough exits…this worries me for the 2018 elections), it was a lot of standing around, and it was cold (well, cold for Seattle) and a bit of drizzling (well, constant raining if you’re from other parts of the country), and they were bored, and hungry, and wanted to go home.

“When the rest of the world finds out what the Soviets are doing, they will put an end to all of this.”

A story of a young girl, trying to survive, during WW2, when the Soviets sent her and her family to Siberia. I’m glad I read it. It is a good read, a quick read. I am also glad that I read while the sun was shining, and not during the gloom of winter.

Focuses on the story of a group of men who attempted to cross Southern Arizona to help their families have a better life. The history of normal people, doing normal things, and it tragically goes wrong.

Urrea is a good writer, it was a quick and easy read. I loved the descriptions of the desert, liked the descriptions of the stages of heat stroke.

One very interesting thing for me… crossing the border “illegally” is not a felony, or even a gross-misdemeanor.

I’m surprised the GOP is leaning this way. They don’t consider Russia a strategic threat? They weren’t invited to the annual Lithuanian Culture Night? They want to turn the US Military into a profit-making enterprise? Why the switch, Republicans? Why all the sudden want to go back on a very successful partnership?

Here’s what I’m thinking… Trump never played a fair game of RISK or chess* as a kid. That he “won” because he was the spoiled rich brat. Because a rudimentary knowledge of strategic games would show, if you are gonna fight, best to do it some place else. Especially away from your industrial complexes.

yeah…yeah…sure… they don’t spend the proper amount of cash on their military.

But, as one small example, a benefit of belonging to NATO… I am not worried about sneak attacks from the North, because we have Canada covered. I’m not worried about sneak attacks from East, because we have that covered. From North and East, any attacker would lose surprise, and would have to count the cost of fighting through thousands of miles before they even reach America. (How’s that supply train, bad-guys?) [And South Korea, Japan Australia… protecting our West.]

Here’s my suggestion, next time you nominate a game show host to be the President of the United States, how about one that has categories such as “History” and “Geography”, so you won’t be so ignorant.

*I can just see the chess games that he played… “I don’t care about my pawns, they are worthless and weak”

People sneak in, because they love their families, they want what’s best for their families, and because it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to “wait in line”. The authors say we need more immigrants, both in high tech fields and in not-so-glamorous fields like agriculture, and we need to quickly and flexibly be able to let in the workers we need. We need to make the process easy, so people can do the right thing. (Evidently there is an industry of immigration law, because the law is too complex to understand and follow.)

They suggest changing current system, which allows relatives to sponsor immigration, instead limiting sponsors to parents and children.

Post script, a letter to his fellow Republicans, (back in 2013), which is basically “hey Republicans, thousands of American citizen, whose parents immigrated here, become voters every day. Maybe we shouldn’t insult their parents.”

It was a nice read, well written and thought out, and I wish we could have an intelligent dialog about immigration instead of short hysterics, insults and shouting matches.

(Side note: for me one of the great things about the Republican Presidential Candidate debates was having Senator Rubio and Senator Cruz argue in Spanish on national tv.)